Just bought an early 2015 MacBook Air 11 inch and love it, wondering about security software?

[Brian1230]

I just bought an early 2015 MacBook Air that is running macOS Big Sur. I have used Mac's before with earlier versions of macOS and my boyfriend has a 2013 MacBook Air and does not use any security software on his, plus that is what I liked about the older versions of macOS, you didn't need any. I am wondering if Big Sur is the same or not?

Had this air for almost a day now, and it is so much better than using my windows laptop.

 

[MacInWin]

Welcome to the forum. And congratulations on the new (to you) MBA. There is no real virus threat to Macs under any of the versions of macOS. However, there is malware (adware, popups, etc), that you may want to check for periodically. DetectX Swift will do a quick scan for you for what may be lurking. A deeper scan is available from VirusBarrier Scanner. You don't need anything to be resident all the time, just use those tools whenever you think something may be awry, or on a schedule like once a month or every other month. Big Sur is more secure than previous versions of macOS because of some things Apple has done to protect the critical system files from tampering, so the risk is small. Most of the annoyances are browser related, popup ads, occasional site hijacking, etc. Relatively benign, just annoying.

 

[Brian1230]

That's good to know. it is so nice to use a computer all day that is not constantly wanting something, updates or virus scans or who knows what. It looks like there is a lot more new features in Big Sur than El Capitan had, so I will be learning about the latest as I go. Glad to see it basically works the same though. Used windows 10 for 8 months and never really got comfortable with it. I'll probably get heat from the job when we can actually go to the office for jumping ship and going to the other side, or.... maybe I can convince more people to jump to Apple.